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Lots more to the story than this and most of it is pretty damning to the federal government, although Weaver must shoulder at least a little of the blame for being a stubborn cuss. Don't believe me, ask him. But no excuse at all for how it escalated.

1. Weaver was entrapped by the ATF. That isn't an opinion, it's a formal jury finding.

2. The court date he was supposed to make to defend against the charge was mis-written on the letter he received, apparently by a perfectly innocent mistake on the part of the court clerk.

3. Local (Boundary County) cops actually did arrest him once for Failure To Appear, which was so bogus Weaver determined never to make himself vulnerable again.

4. The Federal Marshals were brought in after no less than 14 months of Weaver refusing to come down. Pass-off of information from the ATF guy was horribly incomplete. Weaver couldn't infiltrate the Aryan Nations because they already knew him. He argued scripture with them on a regular basis and disagreed volubly with the white supremacy part.

5. The one guy who could have cleared the thing up (in court) was the Marshal who got killed, Degan. What actually precipitated the gunfight (it wasn't much of a gunfight, actually) was Degan throwing rocks at the back yard, which was contrary to their supposedly covert camera-setting mission, which they'd just completed. The other Marshals asked him why he did that and he told them "to see what the dog will do". The dog did what Degan knew it would do, alert. That brought Sammy (13 years old) and Kevin Harris out. They actually thought they had a deer up, which is why Kevin grabbed a deer rifle. Sammy had a Ruger Mini-14.

6. My conjecture - Degan was up there to assassinate an inconvenient dog, which he did end up doing. To that end he had lugged a suppressed submachine gun along, which the other Marshals also thought somewhat strange. Problem was, Sammy shot back, turned, ran back toward the house yelling to his father. He was then shot in the arm and the back by...someone. No bullets recovered (they went right through him, he was just a little guy). Harris shot Degan, who was shooting at Sammy. One shot, chest, with a deer rifle. The armor Degan had on wouldn't stop that.

7. The FBI had not one, but eleven snipers surrounding the place, all but one of whom disregarded the outrageous rules of engagement put out by Washington. These are, after all, sworn officers of the law. The one who followed the ROE was Horiuchi, and he managed to miss both of the shots he took at around 100 yards. One got Weaver in the arm, one killed his wife in her own doorway. Holding her baby.

8. The only unwounded adult left in the place was Sarah, 16, who spent the next 11 horrible days with a rifle defending her family, feeding the kids, lying in a pool of her mother's blood.

9. The FBI negotiator insisted throughout on trying to make contact with Vicki, taunting her at one point about sharing some nice pancakes for breakfast. Vicki was, of course, dead. The effect of that stupidity on making the family surrender was pretty predictable. He later said he was "devastated" to learn the truth.

10. Randy and Kevin Harris were acquitted of all charges in a federal court, except for the one Failure to Appear charge, where the judge let Randy off with time served.

11. No formal charges or penalties were ever levied against any member of the ATF, the Federal Marshals, or the FBI. The ones the county prosecutor attempted to file against Horiuchi were quashed immediately.

The thing was an absolutely monumental cock-up and it was due to lack of professionalism and terrible communication. The Marshals allegedly wouldn't listen to the ATF guy, who tried to tell them that the Failure to Appear charge was an administrative error. The Marshals got frustrated and initiated an armed raid that got utterly out of control through their own actions and then clammed up because a 13-year-old kid was dead. The FBI was told that Weaver was a fanatical white supremacist (untrue), a PTSD Vietnam Vet (untrue) holed up in a compound with automatic weapons, mines, and booby traps (all untrue). They were told by a journalist that a Weaver had fired at a helicopter (untrue - Weaver never so much as took a shot at anyone).

It took months to dig the truth out of it and at every turn the federal government looked worse. Consequences to them? None.

For a very good and even-handed book on the topic I recommend Ruby Ridge by Jess Walter, a Spokane journalist who simply would not give up digging.